The Financial Times has ranked the UCD Smurfit Executive Development programme at 69th in the world and 34th in Europe. It is the only Irish institution to feature in the Financial Times Executive Education open enrolment ranking.

Executive education includes non-degree courses for companies and working managers. Almost 600 executives took part in open enrolment programmes at Smurfit Executive Development last year.

The Financial Times uses a combination of customer feedback and data from business schools to compile its two ranking tables.

The open enrolment ranking refers to courses that accept applicants regardless of their employer. The customised enrolment ranking refers to courses offered only to employees from specific companies.

This new entry means its Executive Education and MBA programmes are both ranked in the top 100 in the world. The Economist and Financial Times have ranked the UCD Smurfit MBA programme in the top 100 every year since 2000.

It was ranked 79th in the world and 24th in Europe in the Financial Times Top 100 Global MBA rankings in 2016. The Economist placed the same programme at 56th in the world and 17th in Europe in its 2015 rankings.

Only 1% of business schools in the world hold UCD Smurfit’s ‘triple crown’ of accreditations from the three centres of business and academic excellence. These are AACSB (US), EQUIS (Europe) and AMBA (UK).